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Consumer discretionary stocks were hit hard Monday during a broad market rout, after a steep selloff in Chinese stocks triggered a world-wide selloff of risky assets. Netflix Inc. led the sector decline, tumbling 11.2% in early trade. Under Armour Inc. , a high-flyer this year, slide 8% and toymaker Hasbro Inc. lost 7%. GameStop Corp. fell 6.5^ and Staples Inc. was down 6.4%. The S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary subsector was down 4.2%.

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From:: Stock Market News

Shares of major technologies companies fell sharply in early trade on Monday, mirroring a broader market selloff that had the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 600 points. Among the biggest movers were social-media stocks Facebook Inc. , which fell nearly 7%, and Twitter Inc. , down more than 8%. Netflix Inc. fell 11.5%, while Box tumbled 15%. Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors Inc. fell 6%, while those of SolarCity , the solar-panel company on which he serves as chairman, fell 9%. Shares of Etsy Inc. , Fitbit and Shopify , which all went public this year, fell 7%, 11.5% and 10%, respectively. Of the companies based in China, Weibo Corp. fell 14%, while e-commerce giant Alibaba Group slumped 6%. Of the two major tech-industry ETFs, the Technology Select Sector SPRD Fund fell 5.5%, while the PowerShares QQQ Trust slumped 4%.

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From:: Stock Market News

While losses for stocks accelerated with a vengeance last week and another selling storm is on the horizon Monday, the fact that the S&P 500 took its time achieving a 5% pullback from an all-time high indicates stocks aren’t likely to slip into a bear market, says Sam Stovall, U.S. equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ, in a note. It took the S&P 500 92 calendar days to achieve a 5% pullback, the longest since World War II, Stovall said noting that there were only two other times it took the index more than 80 days to achieve a 5% pullback, once leading to a total drop of only 6.2% and the other to a fall of 14.8%. “History says, but does not guarantee, however, that the S&P 500 will likely not slip into a new bear market, based on the length of time the S&P 500 took to fall by 5% since the prior market top, combined with the strength of the U.S. housing market and today’s low level of inflation,” said Stovall. A bear market occurs when stocks fall 20% from their peak.

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From:: Stock Market News

Visa Inc. on Monday said it will expand its global reach by adding new merchants and issuers to Visa Checkout, which allows customers to pay with their cards online on any device. Visa added new banks such as China Merchants Bank and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank in China and Emirates Islamic Bank and Mashreq in United Arab Emirates, among others, to its collection of issuers. Visa signed new merchant partners in the U.S., Australia, Canada and Columbia such as Best Buy and Barnes & Noble (College) in the U.S and the Heart and Stroke Foundation in Canada. Visa said it will begin several global co-marketing campaigns with merchants this fall. Visa Checkout is available in 16 countries and boasts more than six million registered users since launching a year ago, according to a news release. Shares of Visa are up 8.6% in the year to date, while the S&P has dropped 4%.

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From:: Stock Market News

Apple Inc. said a component in the iSight camera of its iPhone 6 Plus may fail in a “small percentage” of devices, causing photos to look blurry. The affected units fall into a certain serial-number range, sold primarily between September 2014 and January 2016. Apple said it will replace the camera, located on the back of the device, free of charge, if the phone is producing blurry photos and falls into the eligible number range. The company has provided a page at this website where users can submit their phone’s serial number to see if they are eligible. Apple started selling the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in September 2014. The company boasted more than 74.5 million iPhones sold in its fiscal first quarter, which ran from October through December 27. Shares of Apple fell 6.4% in premarket trade, falling below $100 and putting the stock on course to open at its lowest level since Oct. 20, 2014.

Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.

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From:: Stock Market News

Shares of all 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average components are falling more than 2% in premarket trade Monday, with Chevron Corp. leading the way lower with a 7.3% tumble. Among other downside leaders, shares of Visa Inc. shed 7.2%, of Apple Inc. slid 6.4%, of Cisco Systems Inc. slumped 4.6%, of Coca-Cola Co. gave up 4.9% and of Microsoft Corp. dropped 4.2%. The best performing stocks were those of Verizon Communications Inc. , down 2.6%, and Johnson & Johnson , down 2.7%. Dow futures were down 643 points, or 3.9%, in recent trade.

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From:: Stock Market News

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The national activity index from the Chicago Fed swung back into positive territory in July, suggesting above-trend growth last month. The index rose to 0.34 in July from negative 0.07 in June, while the three-month average was neutral after a negative 0.08 reading in June, the Chicago Fed said Monday. The index is a weighted average of 85 different economic indicators, designed so that zero represents trend growth and a three-month average below negative 0.70 suggests a recession has begun.

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From:: Stock Market News

The odds are “zero” that the selloff in the S&P 500 Index is over, said Carter Braxton Worth, technical analyst at Cornerstone Macro. The S&P 500 has dropped 5.8% last week, and 7.5% from its record close of 2,130.82 on May 21. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Friday 10.1% below its May peak. He gives a number of reasons for his belief: A) the fact that many important stock leaders, such as Amazon , Netflix , Starbucks and Google , “succumbed so aggressively last week is a very serious development and one that is virtually impossible to reverse on an intermediate basis; B) certain banks, brokers and certain “impervious” healthcare stock broke down; C) the fact that there was no let up in selling of the sectors that were already beaten down, such as energy , industrials and materials is a big concern; D) there have been 211 corrections in the S&P 500 of 5% or greater since 1927, and the mean decline is 12.11%, so “once you’re down more than 5% you end up going down further, more often than not. S&P 500 futures shed 2.8% in recent trade.

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From:: Stock Market News

Yahoo Inc.’s stock dropped 6.6% in premarket trade Monday, as it continues to follow the fate of of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding , of which it still own 384 million shares. Through Friday, Yahoo’s shares had fallen 37% from its 14-year high reached on Nov. 17, 2014, while Alibaba’s stock had lost 43% from its record high a week earlier. Alibaba shares slid 7.6% ahead of Monday’s morning, as China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite plunged 8.5% overnight. Yahoo’s stock is on on track to open at the lowest level since Sept. 24, 2013. Yahoo announced plans in January to spin off its Alibaba stake, but it’s not expected to occur until the fourth quarter of this year.

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From:: Stock Market News

Shares of AGL Resources Inc. surged almost 9% in premarket trade Monday, after Southern Co. said it has agreed to buy AGL in a deal with an enterprise value of about $12 billion. Southern Co. said it expects the deal to boost earnings per share in the first full year after the close, and to drive long-term EPS growth to 4% to 5%. AGL will become a wholly owned unit of Southern Co., creating the second-biggest utility in the U.S. by customer base. AGL shareholders will receive $66 in cash for each share, a premium of 36.3% over the volume-weighted average stock price over the last 20 trading days through Aug. 21. “We believe the addition of AGL Resources to our business will better position Southern Company to play offense in supporting America’s energy future through additional natural gas infrastructure,” Chief Executive Thomas Fanning said in a statement. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2016. Southern Co. shares were up slightly in premarket trade, but are down 6.7% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 has lost 4.3%.

Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.

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From:: Stock Market News